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THE CHRISTIAN FRONT 
eace Leaflet No. 1 


CATHOLIC YOUTH 
AND 
WORLD PEACE 
by 
Elizabeth Sweeney 


Executive Secretary... 


Catholic Association for International Peace 


Washington, D. Cu pe ey 


: ANVECRCITY OF ILLINO?: 

To the youth of the world, and to the guardians of 
youth as well, should the question of World Peace be 
most important and especially to those who are members 
of a Faith universal—a Faith founded by the Prince of 
Peace. The present threatening world crisis and the trend 
of excessive nationalism in practically all of the great 
countries, the glorification of national pride and haughti- 
ness, and the ever-increasing national hatreds and preju- 
dices are a serious threat to international harmony. With 
the horrors of 1914-1918 still blackening the memory of 
this generation, intolerance and violence are striving for 
the ascendancy. The tragedies of war fall directly on 
youth and indirectly on all those with whom youth is 
associated. This movement, as are all movements sub- 
versive of true peace, is alien to the doctrine and prin- 
ciples of the Universal, the Catholic Church, whose pur- 
pose is that all men may call one another brother and be 
saved. 


Peace education and action on the part of young Cath- 
olic men and women are necessary if these principles on 
World Peace are to be made articulate. Rapid trans 
portation and quick communication enable us to learn 
more quickly about others, help them and be helped by 
them. We are united by a supra-national faith that sur- 
mounts barriers of race and color and are members of 
the Mystical Body of Christ—a Body so intensely one 
that injury to one of its members affects every other 
member—and we are in duty bound to be one with those 
of other lands. 


We in a new country, proud of our new institutions, 
are open to this fault. Therefore, homes, schools of all 
grades, the pulpit, the press, organizations of all sorts, and 
particularly youth, are urged to take account of and meet 
this need of the people of the United States so that we 
shall be better able to do our part in avoiding war and 
preserving peace. Of the very substance of this is the 
difference between patriotism and that national egotism 
which is now called nationalism. The national egotist 
thinks that his country is always and in all respects right 
in its dealing with others. This is not Catholic teaching. 


If the four hundred million and more Catholics in the 
wcrld today were to heed the call of Pope Pius XI and 
his predecessors and further the will to international peace 
and friendship, the menace of war which now walks 
abroad would be immeasurably lessened. The responsi- 

g-ility for wars in the future rests mainly on the shoulders 
of those who will direct the thoughts of tomorrow. Their 
efforts in this respect cannot be too great, too earnest, 
to meet adequately the requirements of Catholic doctrine. 
It is true that most people do not desire war for them- 
selves, but the inarticulate will to peace of individuals, 
uniformed as to practical issues, is helpless before the 
organized forces of pride and greed. 


If youth is hesitant to promote world peace out of 
motives of justice and charity, let it come to this con- 
clusion by being shown that wars are futile and highly 
organized rackets in which it is the victim. Let it read 
The Cross of Peace by Gibbs, Merchants of Death by 
Hanighen and Engelbrecht, Blood, Iron and Profits by 
Seldes, Testament of Youth by Brittain, the recent start- 
ling realistic story, Blood Lust, by Hervey Allen, the 
findings of the Nye Committee on Munitions, or ponder 
over the gruesome illustrations in Laurence Stallings’ The 
First World War, if it would know that it is not always 
“glorious and sweet to die for one’s country.” 


Let war be stripped of its pomp and pageantry, of its 
patriotic emotionalism, of its stirring martial airs and its 
glamorous uniforms—all vicious opiates to dull the minds 
of youth to the realization of a needless sacrifice. Let 
youth see what happens when a nation goes to war. First, 
millions of men are taken away from their everyday 
work of producing food, shelter and clothing, and thrust 
into the army. Millions of other workers are turned 
from productive employment and set to work arming 
and equipping and feeding the parasitical army. Work 
and business and life are turned upside down, and the 
whole energies of the nation are directed with utter ruth- 
lessness to bloodshed and destruction. 


Let our young people whose opinions on war are still 
unformed visit the soldiers’ hospitals and insane asylums 
or see the realism depicted in such plays as Journey’s End, 
Bury the Dead or Testament of Drums. Here will they 
learn truths not revealed in the glowing annals of super- 
patriotic societies whose pomp and pageantry blind youth 
to its horror and brutality. Innumerable stories have 
filled our newspapers following the recent distribution of 
the Bonus Bonds. We need not go beyond our own com- 
munity to read of the tragic accounts of soldiers unable 
to sign for them because of blindness, paralysis of the 
arms or because they had no arms at all, not to mention 
the thousands whose mental condition prevented their 
even knowing that there was a Bonus. 


Now, all this has to be paid for. The government 


borrows money and spends it as fast as it can in destroy- 
ing food, shelter and clothing, and in killing as many 
as possible. The money is spent quickly and borrowed 
back again, and spent again to further the carnage. The 
process is repeated as long as the war lasts. And after 
all the money is spent what is there to show for it but 
ruined factories and farms, flooded mines, wrecked homes, 
sin, desolation, starvation and death—and on top of that 
a huge debt which we cannot pay and which, if it is ever 
paid, must be saddled on our children and their children. 


Let us visualize for a moment, if we can, what the 
war meant and still means. Nearly 10,000,000 were 
killed; more than 16,000,000 seriously wounded; about 
14,000,000 otherwise wounded, and several millions are 
still missing. The cost was nearly $338,000,000,000. If 
we could have tossed this money into the sea, it would 
of course have been much better, but the fact is that we 
must double this amount, since all the money was spent 
not to create wealth but to destroy what we had—and our 
lives with it. We burned the candle at both ends. 


A German mathematician has estimated that enough 
money was spent in the war to buy a $2,500 home in a 
five-acre plot for every family in the United States, Can- 
ada, Australia, England, Belgium, France, Russia, and 
Germany, and in addition to provide a hospital, uni- 
versity and schools, including salaries of teachers, nurses, 
doctors, and professors, for every group of 20,000 people. 
But instead of this prosperity, what have we? The car- 
toonist Talburt, in the Washington News, who depicted 
the unemployed man selling apples on a mountain of 
wrecked armaments has caught something of the vision. 
And yet, unless we are widely travelled and have a 
comprehensive grasp of world affairs, we can have no 
inkling of what it all means. And the end is not yet; 
we have yet to see what will come out of the war, what 
it has meant to man to ignore the everlasting words of 
Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said: 
“Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall see God.” 


The disturbed condition of the world today makes the 
danger of further war imminent. And back of it all is 
the struggle for markets, since our industrial systems do 
not enable people to consume enough of the goods that 
they make, and through human avarice we make much 
of the wrong kind of goods. All the nations must sell 
heavily abroad, while their own people have not sufficient 
food, shelter, and clothing. Hence, the conflict. Social 
justice as set forth in the insistent teaching of the Church 
is the only means of submerging this conflict and making 
for national and international friendship and stability. 

Civilization could not weather another war in the near 
future on a large scale. And what is more, military 
experts assure us that mere flesh and blood will not dare 
show itself above ground in the next war, even hundreds 


of miles behind the front, and below ground it will not 
be safe. Thoughts such as these suggest themselves today 
to all of us and especially to youth upon whom the burden 
of war will fall. 


In spite of all that has been done since 1918, the con- 
clusion cannot be escaped that peace between nations is 
far from being assured. Many of the conditions of inter- 
national enmity which brought on the last war are un- 
changed. The daily press is our best proof of this fact. 
War and the danger of spread of war are in the fore- 
ground. Political, economic and cultural life appears still 
to be unprepared to cope with the problem of keeping 
the peace in a world grounded in rivalry. What is most 
important of all and is of the substance of all the rest, 
the nations are not yet willing to avow Christ and His 
Kingship over the world. For those who love justice and 
charity and hate iniquity, one conclusion from this is 
inevitable. It is, as far as time and abilities allow, to 
learn what needs to be done to keep the peace of the 
world and then courageously to do what the needs demand. 
Here is a task not only for the young but also for those 
who are responsible for their welfare. 


In these days of unjust wars of aggression far better 
that the names of Catholic youth be inscribed on the list 
of conscientious objectors than on the bronze memorial 
tablets adorning the college libraries, the city halls and 
other public places. It is much nobler for youth to live 
and fight the present battle for justice and charity than 
to die in order that the greed of rulers and international 
bankers may be satisfied and the coffers of the munition 
manufacturers filled. Those of us who had the good 
fortune—or perhaps the bad fortune—to see small white 
crosses stretching out over the fields of France and Bel- 
gium, or who came in daily contact on both sides of the 
Atlantic with hundreds of young American lads maimed 
physically or mentally for life, have seen the other side 
of war and know its futility. 


Yet it is not because of these that Catholic yduth should 
be the leaders in the peace movement today. Convine- 
ing as these facts are in themselves, there are higher and 
worthier motives that should cause leadership among them. 
To Catholic youth this problem should have an especial 
appeal. It must learn that war is never justified until 
means of peace are tried and found wanting. It must 
know that most wars and international conflicts center 
now, directly or indirectly, in the national pride of 
peoples, in questions of control over raw materials and 
markets for finished goods, and in access of peoples to 
work and livelihood in regions where higher standards 
of living are possible. These problems must be solved 
and solved now. Yet we lay emphasis upon peaceful 
means of settling serious conflicts which arise from such 
problems rather than upon the problems themselves. 


341, 
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po. ft 


Let us note what Pope Leo XIII says in his Encyclical 
Son the Reunion of Christendom, “Inexperienced youths 


are removed from parental direction and control to be 
Sthrown amid the dangers of the soldier’s life; robust 
“= young men are taken from agriculture, or ennobling 
So studies or trades, or the arts, to be put under arms. 
“< Hence the treasures of the states are exhausted by the 
enormous expenditures, the national resources are frit- 


tered away, and private fortunes impaired, and thus 
armed peace which now prevails cannot last much longer. 
Can this be the normal condition of human society?” 


Catholics in the United States, and youth above all, 
should do more than their numerical share to prevent 
another world war. Our citizenship, influenced by our 
moral obligation to justice and charity, calls upon us to 
act. Catholic youth is urged to extend Catholic Action 
and the knowledge of right principles in order to abolish 
enmity, to create a true love of peace and a willingness 
to spread it throughout the world. In his Christmas Al- 
locution, Pope Pius XI in speaking of world peace says: 
“Here then is found a vast and glorious field for all the 
Catholic laity, whom we unceasingly call upon and ask 
to share in the hierarchical apostolate. To Catholics of 
all the world, and particularly those who study, labor 
and pray in Catholic Action, we turn today with this 
warm invitation and plea. May they all unite in the 
peace of Christ in a full concord of thoughts and emo- 
tions, of desires and prayers, of deeds and words—the 
spoken word, the written word, the printed word—and 
then an atmosphere of genuine peace, warming and 
beneficent, will envelop all the world.” Let youth re- 
spond to this appeal. 


It is encouraging to know that active efforts have been 
made to give voice to this will to peace. More and more, 
intelligent young Catholics are grouping themselves not 
only to study the Church’s doctrine on peace and war 
and its application to the frequently serious international 
questions confronting their countries, but to disseminate 
this knowledge and promote understanding and good- 
will among others. The inclusion of courses on interna- 
tional relations in the curricula of many colleges, the 
correlation of the principles of peace with the study of 


. philosophy, law, economics, history, etc., the growth of 


~ International Relations Clubs in Catholic colleges (now 


numbering sixty-eight), and the increase in Student Peace 


»Conferences and of Youth Study Groups on world ques- 


tions throughout the country are hopeful signs in the 
right direction. 


The Catholic Association for International Peace has 
made a hopeful move in this direction. At a recent meet- 
ing in New York representatives from Catholic colleges 
and Newman Clubs were called together to form the 
Student Peace Federation of the C. A. I. P. The response 


wc 


of these young students was stimulating and constructive. 
Groups interested in world peace in the various institu- 
tions are to be federated on a regional basis with a Faculty 
Adviser in charge of each area. A year-round program 
based on the Catholic principles in international problems 
set forth in the twenty-seven pamphlets with their sup- 
plementary N. C. W. C. Study Outlines will be fol- 
lowed and a general meeting of the Faculty Advisers 
and student representatives held annually. 

There are manifold suggestions to be offered today to 
youth and to those who are responsible for their future 
especially in regard to the present world crisis and Cath- 
olic teaching on the matters involved. Only by a careful 
and constant study of the causes of such crises and of 
the eradication of these causes can there be any hope of 
international accord. Effective action for world peace 
must be preceded by a genuine knowledge of the facts 
involved. A thorough study of the material mentioned 
above on world questions in books, periodicals, pamphlets, 
the press, both secular and Catholic, is recommended. 
Encouragement of able lecturers on international affairs 
is needed as well as preparation of ourselves for dissem- 
ination of Catholic international views through both the 
press and the lecture platform. 


Creation of small study clubs on world problems, 
formation of international clubs in the university of 
college, inclusion of courses on international relations in 
the college curriculum, setting aside a section in the 
library for peace literature, and arranging for peace de- 
bates, conferences, plays and pageants are effective means 
to further right thinking and action on our relation and 
obligation to the agencies of international life. Pope 
Benedict XV in his letter to the belligerents, August 
1917, proposed that “. . . moral right be substituted for 
the material force of arms in the reciprocal dealings of 
nations; the nations enter upon a just agreement for the 
simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments; 
armed force be replaced by the noble and peaceful insti- 
tution of arbitration.” 


To Catholic youth the question of world peace should 
have an especial appeal particularly because it is endowed 
with a faith and a philosophy that know neither racial nor 
national boundaries. With it rests the solution of today’s 
and tomorrow's problem—whether we shall live in a 
world torn by strife born of greed and selfishness or in 
a werld where man may live in harmony with his 
Creator—the Prince of Peace—and his fellow-man. 





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